Category Archives: Rail Safety

Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail Safety, Rail tanker cars

NTSB: DOT-111 rail tanker cars “unacceptable public risk”

Repost from Associated Press, on Huffington Post

DOT-111 Rail Tank Cars Used To Ship Oil Called ‘Unacceptable’

by JOAN LOWY,  Posted:
Main Entry ImageA DOT-111 rail tanker travels through Council Bluffs, Iowa, Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2012. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik) | ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rail tank cars being used to ship crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region are an “unacceptable public risk,” and even cars voluntarily upgraded by the industry may not be sufficient, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.

The cars, known as DOT-111s, were involved in derailments of oil trains in Casselton, N.D., and Lac-Megantic, Quebec, just across the U.S. border, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt told a House Transportation subcommittee hearing.

Forty-seven people were killed and 30 buildings destroyed in the blaze ignited by the Lac-Megantic accident. The Casselton accident, which occurred half a mile outside the town, created a massive fire that burned for more than 24 hours.

The NTSB has been urging replacing or retrofitting the tank cars since 1991, but the most recent federal effort to write tougher regulations for new cars didn’t get underway until 2011. An initial public comment period closed in December, and regulators are currently at work writing proposed new standards, Cynthia Quarterman, head of the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, told the panel. She said she expects her agency to propose new tank car standards before the end of this year, but refused to be pinned down under questioning by lawmakers on when those rules might become final.

“Right now, there is so much uncertainty that people aren’t going to make investments in safer cars and they’re going to keep running these crummy cars and killing people,” Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., complained.

Quarterman said she expected her staff to finish writing proposed rules “very soon.” All major regulations go to the White House before they are issued to ensure the safety benefits outweigh the cost to industry. It often takes months to years between when new rules are proposed and when they become final.

Ed Hamberger, president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads, said the industry has strongly urged the government to set new tank car standards.

“We believe there needs to be a safer tank car,” he said.

At least one major freight railroad has given up waiting. Last week, BNSF invited bids from manufacturers for 5,000 new tank cars made to new specifications that the company has developed. The aim is to make these latest tank cars safer than the voluntarily upgraded tank cars that the NTSB has questioned as possibly not safe enough.

The NTSB has said vulnerabilities with the DOT-111s means they are easily ruptured during accidents, releasing crude oil or other hazardous liquids like ethanol that then ignites.

U.S. crude oil production is forecast to reach 8.5 million barrels a day by the end of 2014, up from 5 million barrels a day in 2008. The increase is overwhelmingly due to the fracking boom in the Bakken region, which is mainly in North Dakota, but also extends into parts of Montana and Canada.

U.S. freight railroads transported about 415,000 carloads of crude in 2013, up from just 9,500 in 2008, according to government and industry figures.

The oil trains, some of which are 100 cars long, pass through or near scores of cities and towns.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, called on the freight rail industry and the Transportation Department to amend a voluntary agreement reached last week to address oil train safety concerns. He said the agreement should be changed to require industry to develop a plan no later than July 1 to phase out or retrofit the DOT-111s.

“Each week seems to come with another freight train derailment, and it is imperative we undertake every measure necessary to ensure the safety of our nation’s communities through which these crude oil tank cars pass,” he said in a statement.

Kevin Thompson, spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration, said the agreement was just one step in ongoing efforts to improve the safety of crude oil shipments by rail.

“All communities will see a reduced risk of derailments because of increased track and mechanical inspections and the use of enhanced braking technology” under the safety agreement, Thompson said.

Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail Safety, Rail tanker cars

U.S. Safety Ruling causes Canada company to suspend use of some DOT-111 tank cars

Repost from The Calgary Herald

Crude-by-rail shipper deals with U.S. ruling

Some cars suspended but shipments continuing, says Torq CEO

Crude-by-rail shipper deals with U.S. ruling
Emergency workers examine the aftermath of a train derailment and fire in Lac-Megantic, Que., last July. Photograph by: Ryan Remiorz , AP

By Dan Healing, Calgary Herald February 26, 2014

CALGARY — Some tanker cars in Western Canada have been temporarily suspended from being used to ship oil in the wake of Tuesday’s U.S. rail safety ruling, the chief executive of Calgary-based terminal operator Torq Transloading Inc. said Wednesday.

But service is continuing to be offered, Jarrett Zielinski told the Herald.

“Everything is under regulatory review. The shipments we ship are compliant,” he said in an interview.

“Every precaution is being taken on our end. We are working collaboratively with the regulators, the railroads and the customers to ensure all of our shipments are compliant and there has been no interruption of service.”

A story by Bloomberg earlier in the day had quoted a Torq executive as saying shipments had been halted but Zielinski said that’s not true.

The U.S. Transportation Department on Tuesday ordered energy companies to immediately conduct chemical tests on all crude intended for rail shipment and warned that certain commodities require more robust tank cars for transport.

Zielinski said his private company ships between 40,000 and 45,000 barrels of oil per day but it doesn’t own the cars. He said the “vast majority” of the cars are compliant and any that are questionable have been “temporarily suspended while they are reclassified.”

He said about 95 per cent of the oil his company ships is undiluted heavy oil, which has a much lower risk of igniting than the light crudes shipped from the North Dakota Bakken — such as the cargo aboard the train that exploded in July at Lac-Megantic, Que., killing 47 people.

Most of the oil is bound for the United States. He said Torq frequently tests the product.

Two Calgary-based oilsands shippers said they don’t believe the U.S. ruling will affect their transportation plans.

Producer MEG Energy Corp., which began shipping diluted bitumen in December through the Canexus Corp. rail-loading facility northeast of Edmonton, and moved six unit trains each carrying 60,000 barrels of diluted bitumen in January, is not affected, said spokesman Brad Bellows.

“The cars we have made arrangements to move our products on are very modern cars that meet or exceed all the recent standards and the outlook,” he said.

Spokesman Pius Rolheiser of Imperial Oil Ltd. said the new rules are not expected to affect a project to build a 100,000-barrel-per-day oil loading terminal near Edmonton.

“We’re still in the process of design and manufacture of the cars but I can tell you with certainty they will meet Canadian safety guidelines,” he said. “The tanker cars we use in this project will meet the DOT 111-F specification, which is the American Association of Railroads current specs. That requires thicker shells as well as steel shields to guard both ends of the car.”

Imperial Oil will be the base load customer in the project it is sharing with American transportation partner Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. Startup is set for next December and the terminal is expected to ship diluted bitumen from Imperial’s Kearl oilsands mine.

Derailment, Martinez CA, Oil Industry, Public Health, Rail Safety, Take Action

Panel of Experts meeting in Martinez Feb. 26

On Facebook: facebook.com/events/834097813284056/
Download, print and distribute the FLYER

Big Oil Trains: Derailing Community Safety

A forum about increased rail accidents, refinery dangers, and climate change.
BigOilInOurMidst_header
How will refinery expansions and transportation of crude oil by rail affect YOUR town?

A panel of experts and activists will inform residents of Benicia, Martinez, Rodeo, Crockett and Port Costa of Big Oil’s plans, both local and global.

Wednesday, Feb. 26th at 6:30 PM
Veterans War Memorial Building, 930 Ward Street, Martinez
(@ the corner of Ward and Court Streets)

Please join our panelists for presentations and Q & A:

  • Marilaine Savard: spokesperson for a citizens’ group in the region of Lac-Mégantic, Québec.  Last year, a string of exploding petroleum rail cars destroyed the center of the town and claimed 47 lives.
  • Antonia Juhasz: oil industry analyst, journalist, and author of “The Tyranny of Oil: The World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must do to Stop It” and “Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill”.
  • Diane Bailey, senior scientist at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council).
  • Marilyn Bardet:  watchdog activist for the Valero refinery  and founding member of Benicia’s Good Neighbor Steering Committee.
  • Nancy Rieser: spokesperson, Crockett-Rodeo-Hercules Working Group, challenging Phillips 66 on its Propane Expansion Project.
  • Kalli Graham: spokesperson, Pittsburg Defense Council, fighting the proposed WesPac oil terminal.

Sponsored by:SunflowerAlliance_logoIn partnership with:
Sierra Club, 350 Bay Area, Communities for a Better Environment, Richmond Progressive Alliance, ForestEthics, Pittsburg Defense Council, Pittsburg Ethics Council, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, and the Crockett-Rodeo-Hercules Working Group.

Download, print and distribute the FLYER

For those in other towns, we have related forums in Pittsburg and Richmond!  See http://sunflower-alliance.org/forums-on-the-new-dangers-of-extreme-energy/

Derailment, Rail Safety, Rail tanker cars, Take Action

Another derailment 2/25, 95 miles north of NYC

Repost from the Poughkeepsie Journal

Engine of empty oil train derails near Kingston; no spill

Feb. 25, 2014 5:46 PM   |  Written by Khurram Saeed
The Journal News

TOWN OF ULSTER — A CSX locomotive hauling 97 empty oil tank cars from Philadelphia to Chicago derailed near Kingston Tuesday morning, raising fresh concerns about the safety of oil trains following several deadly derailments last year.

The oil train was traveling north on the River Line — the same 130-mile track that runs through Rockland — when it derailed about 9:30 a.m. in the town of Ulster, about 70 miles north of New City. None of the tank cars went off the tracks and there were no injuries or spills, police said.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order demanding shippers of volatile Bakken crude oil make sure it’s properly tested and classified before it’s transported by rail. Shippers also have to move the oil in “more robust” tank cars effective immediately.

“Shipping crude oil — or any hazardous material — without proper testing and classification could result in material being shipped in containers that are not designed to safely store it, or could lead first responders to follow the wrong protocol when responding to a spill,” the DOT release stated.

The federal emergency order was the fourth issued by the DOT in the past seven months in response to recent derailments in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada involving the volatile crude oil.

Tuesday’s derailment involved one locomotive and one car carrying sand directly behind it, River Line owner and operator CSX said in a statement. They both went off the track but remained “upright and inline,” the company said.

Service was expected to resume on the line on Tuesday after crews rerailed the track, CSX said. The cause of the derailment is under investigation.

There hasn’t been a major derailment of a CSX train in Rockland in a decade. Prior to that, there had been three in six years.

“We used to have a lot of those here,” said Gordon Wren, Rockland County’s Fire and Emergency Services coordinator. “We put a lot of pressure on CSX to improve the tracks.”

Now the River Line is inspected visually twice a week, plus several times a year by sophisticated equipment that can check the condition and the stability of the rail and track structure, CSX has said.

There has been increased scrutiny on oil shipped by train in recent months, especially in communities through which the trains travel. In a typical week, 14 oil trains — made up of 80 to 100 tank cars, each holding close to 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude — pass through Rockland, a recent Journal News story revealed.

“(Tuesday’s) freight train derailment in Kingston underscores the point: A new ‘virtual pipeline’ is carrying crude oil straight through the Hudson Valley and bringing with it a whole new level of risk to our safety and our environment,” the environmental watchdog group Riverkeeper posted on its website Tuesday.

The unit trains, as they are also known, travel between the Midwest to refineries along the East Coast. Last December, a 99-car oil train hit a car carrier truck at a crossing in West Nyack. The tank cars were empty and the train did not derail but the truck’s cab went up in flames.

The U.S. DOT and the Association of American Railroads, an industry group, last week struck a voluntary deal to improve oil train safety. New measures call for trains to slow down when traveling through major cities, increased track inspections and improved emergency response planning along routes that carry trains hauling up to 3 million gallons of oil each.

“It’s great they’ve reduced the speed going through cities and urban areas,” Wren said. “I think we should be included in that.”

Sen. Charles Schumer agrees. He will hold a press conference Wednesday to contend the safety initiatives don’t go far enough.

Railroads and federal officials plan to address separately a design flaw in tens of thousands of tank cars that make them prone to rupture during derailments. Unlike tank cars that transport dangerous materials, the DOT-111 cars are not pressurized and were not built to transport flammable liquids.

Nearly 70 percent of the tank cars used to move crude oil are DOT-111s. During the past three years, Association of American Railroads has twice proposed phasing out older DOT-111 cars while retrofitting others. Since October 2011, about 18,000 DOT-111 cars have been built with thicker steel shells and other stricter safety improvements.